The case of the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine of Sinai is a major matter of national, ecclesiastical and diplomatic responsibility. A beacon of Orthodoxy and Christianity for 1,600 years, the oldest monastery in the world, a living monastic community with the most important archive of manuscripts, codices and icons dating from the 3rd century AD, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a strategically important geopolitical location, it has had an unchanged status for 1,600 years — one respected, protected and guaranteed by emperors, sultans, Napoleon and the Prophet of Islam himself, Muhammad, through his famous Ahtiname, which forms an integral part of Sharia.
Today, the Prime Minister is presenting an “agreement” by the Egyptian side on the Monastery’s properties as a “success”, despite there being no counterparty and the content of this “agreement” being unknown and unavailable for public scrutiny!
Meanwhile, Egyptian sources are celebrating the fact that the “Greek side” accepted the ruling of the Ismailia Court of Appeal in May 2025, which found that the properties the Monastery has possessed and held as its own for 1,600 years do not belong to it!
The Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister are reassuring the public by saying that the Monastery’s “religious character” is protected. On ownership of the Monastery’s properties and its property status, there is deafening silence.
So let us look at the facts:
First and foremost: There is no agreement, only a draft agreement. The Monastery’s abbot, Archbishop Simeon of Sinai, said yesterday, after intense pressure, that he intends to support it WHEN he has recovered and WHEN he returns to the Monastery to take matters further (he has been away since 10 August).
Second: No one knows what this draft contains. But given that the Prime Minister driving this process and his minister are silent on ownership, we have good reason to suspect that the draft agreement provides for the loss of ownership of the Monastery’s properties.
Third: The support of the Patriarchates and the Church of Greece, invoked by the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, is support for Archbishop Simeon of Sinai to negotiate an agreement that benefits the Monastery rather than harms it. Nothing more.
Fourth: Ownership of the Monastery’s properties is one thing; religious worship is another. The continuation of religious worship does not automatically mean that the Monastery’s property, autonomy and historic rights are secure. The transfer and loss of ownership would mean that the monks and the Monastery would be guests in their own home after 1,600 years.
Fifth: In 2024, Athens and Cairo had developed a framework for agreement that provided for recognition of the Monastery’s OWNERSHIP of all 71 disputed properties, protection of its autonomy in internal administration and cooperation with Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. The framework was not signed because, in the middle of negotiations, the court ruling of May 2025 was issued (or, rather, expedited), apparently as a means of applying pressure in the negotiations. Now, as a result, a settlement without recognition of ownership is being pursued. What happened in between? Why was the previous effort not completed?
In light of the above, the misleading way in which the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister presented an “agreement” that DOES NOT exist raises serious questions!
Even more questions are raised by the way the stance of the Orthodox Churches was presented. Their support for Archbishop Simeon to continue negotiations was passed off as approval of the final terms of an agreement that had not been disclosed to them. A church leader’s support in trying to negotiate is not the same as approval of the terms of a particular settlement.
The issue remains open
The matter cannot be settled without the Sinai Brotherhood. The monks are not mere observers in negotiations that concern the very future of the institution they serve. Their views, their institutional participation and a clear record of their consent are an essential substantive and formal precondition for any “settlement”.
The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister must explain what process was followed, how the Brotherhood was informed, when it met, whether and when it took a decision, what authority it gave the abbot, Archbishop Simeon, and what safeguards were in place.
We are asking for what should go without saying: publication of the full DRAFT agreement and clear answers to the questions above about the ownership status of the disputed properties, the Monastery’s autonomy and the guarantees offered by the Egyptian side.
We also call for full information on the course of negotiations from 2024 to the present and on the institutional participation of the Sinai Brotherhood.
And, of course, we want answers to the serious allegations made by the former Archbishop of Sinai, Damianos, and the European press, including the respected Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which have described the Greek government’s actions as a “sell-out” of the Monastery of Sinai in return for benefits.
It is beyond reason for the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister to trumpet a non-existent “agreement” as a success to the Greek public, while refusing to disclose its terms!
The Holy Monastery of Sinai is not “just another issue” that can be settled behind closed doors and presented afterwards as a diplomatic achievement. It is an integral part of the historic presence of the Greek people and Orthodoxy in a strategically important region at a critical moment.
Protecting the Monastery requires an awareness of historical responsibility, institutional consistency and transparency — not cheap communications spin to divert attention from other recent diplomatic defeats (ratification of the Turkish-Libyan memorandum).
The Prime Minister and Foreign Minister’s haste to announce and pre-emptively declare the “achievement of an agreement” that alters a status unchanged for 1,600 years is suspicious and blatantly disingenuous.
Rather than announce agreements that do not exist, they should support the Monastery. They did not do so; they are not doing so; and there is no sign that they intend to. At the very least, they should stop applying coercive pressure.
They stand exposed.
* Nikolas Farantouris is a PASOK MEP, Professor of European Law in the Department of International and European Studies at the University of Piraeus, and holder of the European Jean Monnet Chair. He visited and stayed at the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine of Sinai on 25–27 September 2026.